Released by: Miserable Pyre
Release Date: 24.12.24
Running Time: 17:09
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 9/10
Good morning, dear friends. Yes, I am writing this in the morning because I was forced to get up early because Moss the Tiny Dictatorial Traitor was being collected by our dog walker, Dan, so he could go and chase three of his friends about for an hour. Mrs Dark Juan has decamped to her studio to complete some work, and I have been left trying to sort out tax regimes for Belgium and getting one of her creations there. I have succeeded in this mighty quest, and hopefully the buyer won’t be shelling out Euros from her arse because I have fucked something up… I’m not a fan of responsibility. Especially when it is my arse on the line. And other people’s finances…
In other news the Schwerer Gothikpanzer is back on the road after giving my wallet a proper reaming without lube, so today I feel grateful and joyous because I fucking hate using the peasant wagon. It is in this uncommon spirit of bonhomie, then, that I have released the Platter of Splatter ™ from its confinement and have politely requested that it play a disc of sounds for me. That disc is the latest EP from Box, entitled “Born to Crawl”, Box being one of the several musical projects of one Andrew Stromstad, a man whose musical abilities and fragmented creativity are still absolutely confounding to me. I have reviewed his previous work with Box and was very impressed with Stromstad’s avant-garde music, not least because one of his other projects, I Am The Intimidator, is concerned solely with the story of Dale Ernhardt, Jr.
No, that is not my sense of humour at work. Stromstad has genuinely released music about NASCAR, but we shan’t dwell on that here.
“Born to Crawl” is an entirely different proposition to “Cherry Blossoms at Night”. Where “Cherry Blossoms” was entirely deranged and took you down darkened paths to madness, “Born to Crawl” is a more studied work concerning itself with raw emotion and storytelling, and the music is more introspective, more Gothic and emotionally raw than the insane channelling of Mr. Bungle and The Locust that the previous release was.
The EP opens with the title track, and it is a glorious amalgam of Post-Punk and clean MOR guitar. It is a haunting track, with Stromstad capturing the paralysis of heartbreak and the realisation of the futility of it. It is a dark, windy, cold night of a song that is disguised with crystal clear production values. Stromstad opens his heart as well as his lungs on this song and his soaring vocal tears at heartstrings and chills you to the bone with its vulnerability. The lyrics concern themselves with the loss of a friend in the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. The song is a minimalist masterpiece, with only a single guitar in action and no overdubs, allowing the piece to breathe and flow.
The second song, ‘Exposed’, changes tack completely and Stromstad turns in a Gothic, Alt-Rock anthem that builds slowly as well as Stromstad channelling the vocal cues and styles of acts like The Temptations on the vocals, to create something that is vaguely unsettling, like going into a subway with some stranger with a covered face five metres behind you, making the skin on your back crawl with the anticipation of something unspeakable happening to you, even though the poor fucker is probably on the way to the same bus station you are and just wants to go home too. There’s more experimentation on this song too, as Stromstad butchers and manipulates the sounds from PETA commercials and adds them to the layers of sound that blow your subconscious into next week, but not with violence. They are more insidious, more creepy than mere blood and guts. Originally penned as a kind of Thin Lizzy-esque Rock anthem, instead it morphs into Noise Rock crossed with Alt-Rock.
‘Ayla’ is the name of the third song on the EP and is named after a recurring figure in Andrew’s dreams. This is a surreal tune that calls upon orchestral horns, classic R’n’B inspired rhythms and has layers of vocals – almost ghostlike in execution, the listener gets the feeling that these vocal lines are spectres conversing with each other in the shadows of the ruined mansion you are exploring. Again, the music is minimalist and there’s space and light and shade and shadow as you move between verse and chorus, and there is a disturbing sense of being unbalanced throughout the whole song, teetering on the brink of something that you really don’t want to be a part of, but hoping against hope that you maintain your equilibrium…
The final offering on this four-track is called ‘Taku’ and was inspired by childhood holidays near Taku Lake in Alaska, and is a musical treatise on decay, and how some moments can be frozen in time, and how it can be comforting to remain in that moment, still and unresponsive, silent and alone.
In short, it’s another excellent release from Stromstad, and one that the more morose among us will get a great deal from, what with the razor-sharp emotionality on display. The instrumentation is deliberately minimal, the vocals powerful yet cracked with sadness at the edges and the runtime short, this being a deliberate choice by Stromstad to make a piece of work that leaves you grasping at the fleeting, diaphanous edges of it as it flits away into the ether. It is a cunning work too, being accessible to pretty much everyone – Goths will find much to savour while burning incense in their rooms and being miserable, Metallers will dig the guitar work even if they don’t find it particularly heavy, and Rockers will enjoy the massive, MASSIVE grooves that are available. There’s everything from Gothic Rock, to Noise, to classic R’n’B, to Hard Rock and beyond influencing the music on “Born to Crawl”.
And that’s why you should buy it. Never has Andrew Stromstad been so introspective and this EP is like a window into the mist-shrouded, dusk time edges of his soul.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System ™ reverently awards Box 9/10 for a work that is searing in its emotional component, yet somehow manages to maintain a sense of detachment from reality and humanity that really is quite haunting.
TRACKLISTING:
Born to Crawl
Exposed
Ayla
Taku
LINE-UP:
One Andrew Stromstad does everything on this record, and it simply is not cricket!!!
Comentarios